Chapter Eight: "Alone in the Dark"
Daniel Havenborn - June 20, 2012 02:46 AM (GMT) Daniel stood in formation with the rest of his squad, he wasn't as bored as some of the other trainees had been, if the truth were told he was actually quite happy with the daily routine they had gotten into, it was definately something new. "Alright, I know that each and everyone of you are happy to be out of those barracks and back into the field. So are we! Today we begin the next phase of your training, today begins the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape portion of your training!" Daniel wasn't truly happy to have to do SERE Training again, he had figured that once was enough but apparently not. "Now I want you all to look to your left, I want you to number of by two's, yes one, two; one, two. Down the line. When your done, the Solider, Marine, Airmen, or Seamen next to you in your one, two pair. Will be your only, and I repeat ONLY friend for the duration of this phase. You will have no one else besides your buddy to rely on in the field, everything you do, you do as a pair. You separate, you die. You stay together, and you will make it out of this phase! Now turn to your buddy, say hello, get acquainted cause once we fall out, he or she is the only person you can talk to from here on out until ordered other wise! Do i make my self clear!?" "One!" Daniel yelled out when it came to his turn. "Oh one more thing, if you fail this portion of the training, you're done. You fail." Daniel had passed SERE Training with flying colors last time but he had also been younger then too, but he still remembered much of his training from the course it would be interesting to see how the SGC did SERE, maybe they'd get those Intar weapons again. He quickly found his partner for the training exercise, "Daniel Havenborn, Sergeant First Class, United States Army." He said to the other trainee. "Alright, now that you've had time to chat, on the command of fall out, you will pick up your duffels, and proceed by squad and buddy pairs to the trucks for transportation. No talking to anyone but your buddy! Fall out!" Peter Kruger - June 22, 2012 02:03 AM (GMT) On "Well, truth be told, my job was saving people having to make use of this training, like pilots. HALO jump behind enemy lines, find the pilot who was humming Danger Zone too loud and get 'em before the enemy did. But being on my duff wasn't all bad. I spent a good chunk of my career stationed in Vegas, got to do the "Red Star" wargames. It was all good fun. And PJs are kind of the unknowns in JSOC. Everyone knows about the SEALs and Delta, Green Berets and Force Recon, and they probably even know about the CCTs, but us PJs? Not a friggin clue." Peter smirked and let Coffin rattle on as he described his career to date. His leg finally started to settle down as the blood began to follow more freely and Peter let out a soft sigh. "So people laugh when I say I'm SF but I'm wearing Air Force Blues. Good to go against the sterotype." "Most people are dumb. Just remember this isn't a game. I am sure we will be put through some pretty crazy things in this so just keep your head in the right place. Good news about being in Afghanistan twice, I have experienced this stuff first hand." Peter smirked again and glanced at the man beside him. "Oh and if you have any questions, just ask." OFF Tag, Coffin, Open. Melinda Macintosh - June 24, 2012 10:04 PM (GMT) ON: After the trucks pulled up in a clearing in the forrest, Mac got off and smacked her hand against the tarp of one of the trucks a few times. "EVERYBODY OFF!" she shouted, stepping at the center of the clearing. "Line up people, I don't have all day!" she continued bellowing as she took her position. "Recruits, as you may notice" she started, in her normal tone of voice. "we are not at base. We are actually, in the middle of a forest. A forest, you will have to navigate through. Petty Officer Fisher has maps, compasses and that's it. Now, Petty Officer, would you like to introduce our esteemed guests?" She gestured to a large assemble of men and women in BDU's standing at an At-ease position Jake stepped forward a feral grin on his face, he rubbed his hands together and looked towards the group off to the side. "You see those ladies and gentlemen over there by the mobile CP?... Well those ladies and gentlemen are some of the biggest and best bad asses in the Galaxy, their respective governments have been nice enough to loan them to us for this phase. These men and woman are and will be some of the best operators you will ever have the chance to train and serve with, we have so much bad assery that you may not make it a hundred meters before they descend upon you like the four horse men of the coming apocalypse." He said turning back to the group of trainees. "We have members from the SAS, SBS, GROM, Korps Commandotroepen, Delta, DEVGRU, Rangers, and the list goes on.... And... If they catch you, you're in for one hell of a ride." "Thank you petty officer." Mac allowed herself a small smile as she looked at her recruits. Some seemed to be intimidated, some relished the challange, some were without feeling. "As you may have noticed, you're not armed. They", she gestured to the assembled special forces people behind her, "however are, Intar weapons to be exact, so getting shot will hurt, it will put you down and believe me" she allowed herself a bigger grin, not the happy kind though, "you do not want to be captured. It is a most unpleasant experience, one that will be carved into your memory." She took her time to give each member a look. "A very unpleasant experience indeed." "Hoo-yah Chief." Jake replied as he walked over with two ammo boxes, one contained the maps, that unknown to the trainees were tagged with GPS/Subspace tags, so they could be found anywhere on the field and then compasses. He placed each box on the ground and kicked them open, "Alright, one member of your two man pair will come forward and take one map, and one compass. You will head over to Sergeant Stills and do a compass check, and then return to your partner and gear up for this phase, all with NO TALK!" He looked at the formation, "Fall out get geared up, get your map and compass, you have, now 9 minutes and 52 seconds!" "You only have 9 minutes and 30 seconds left now until we let these fine people into the woods after you, so you better hurry." Mac said in such a sweet tone it sounded even more dangerous. The formation descended into a controlled chaos, pairs were gearing up and retrieving their gear, Jake stood and watched for a few minutes as the rest of the Training Cadre made it run like a well oiled machine, stepping aside he pulled Mac along with him for a few steps away from the prying ears of the trainees, "Chief once their off and running, I'll need you to come with me to Camp Charlie Two, everything set up and ready to go for the second phase, we just need a supervising officer present." He whispered to her as the trainees were finishing getting geared up, he checked his watch, they had 90 seconds left. Turning to the group, he bellowed. "You have 90 seconds!" "Jolly good, will there be coffee?" She gave Jake a bit of a grin, "I've never ran SERE training, so I'm counting on you to point me in the right directions, Jake." "Not a problem Chief this thing will run smooth as can be, we've fixed the problems we ran into last time, all the weapons have been checked, double, and triple checked, everyone has a trauma kit, Coffin got his own bag of goodies and radios, the works. The maps have been tagged with GPS/Subspace tags so that we have a constant fix on each trainee and hunter, the list goes on Chief... And yes there will be coffee, if you like the kind that is motor oil thick and puts hair on your chest." "Jake, does it look like I need, want or have the wish to have hair on my chest?" She asked, looking at him. "And are those tags going to be used to track down and capture our recruits or just a safety measure?" He laughed, "Sorry Chief, and it wouldn't be a true SERE phase if we didn't cheat." He grinned checking his watch, they were 15 seconds over the 90 he'd given them. Walking up to Sergeant Stills he instructed him to take them to the line, and head them off by twos, till the group was dispersed and then give then give there hunters a general idea of who went what way, and then let them go after about 20 minutes. Tag People, move out! Larissa Koralov - June 25, 2012 10:55 PM (GMT) ON SERE Training Grounds Larissa had focused on using the ride from the barracks to keep herself in check, and was largely silent as they were herded out of the truck and into formation. The personnel before them, well, they certainly meant business. And yet, she almost welcomed the challenge they posed to her. Being of Vympel had been a source of great pride to her, and pitting her skills against some of the personnel she could consider equal. The problem was, in her evaluation, how well the mercenary had been trained. Granted, money could certainly buy the right people to train them, and assuming they had enough to hire on the right trainers, an equally well bought program would help, but there just was something wrong about trying to say that a mercenary could rival the best commandos in the world. Once allowed to, she grabbed her gear, compass and map, and waited on Tremblay to gear up before they had to move out and get out away from the OpFor. OFF Tag Open William Tremblay - June 26, 2012 02:16 AM (GMT) william thought about Larissa annoyse towered him, it probably was not unfounded in the last 60 the name mercenary had gone into the gutters thanks to the "bad type" of mercs who had ruled since the company had originally gone out of business, but that didn't mean he liked being compared to that type. his was a descended of a line mercs who had won honer for there deeds and before the this training was over, he make sure she new it. William picked up his gear and walked over to Larissa "well then now we wait to go i do believe" Brian Coffin - June 26, 2012 04:53 AM (GMT) ON En-route, SERE Grounds "Hey. I haven't taken these games lightly since an MH-60 crash at a "Red Star" killed four of my friends back in '21, and I damned sure haven't taken things lightly since two weeks ago." Brian replied, with an edge to his tone, before relaxing a bit, "I've trained for stuff like this my whole time in, but nothing beats practical knowledge." The truck finally stopped, and Brian clambered out with the others and fell in, before the CID investigator, who had become the new XO of this outfit, began explaining the situation before them, and all of this was fairly standard. Half the trick was evading the OpFor, and Brian had done this enough times to know that they were going to cheat, but how they'd do it this time was beyond him, especially since they had access to tech that would have turned this on it's side. On cue, silently, Brian grabbed his gear, finding that not only did he have the standard field gear, he also had his full load of medical gear, which he took a few moments to inventory everything before getting a map and compass, and got the compass synced up before falling in with Kruger to begin their trek into the woods and getting some distance between them and the OpFor. OFF Tag Kruger Open Larissa Koralov - June 27, 2012 06:49 PM (GMT) ON SERE Grounds Larissa glared at Tremblay, first making a motion for him to be quiet, and then shaking her head, leading off into the woods as soon as he was geared up, trying to put as much ground between them and the OpFor. Nearly every branch of American Special Operations were present, plus Poland's elite GROM, Dutch Special Forces, and Larissa was sure that there were more, possibly even Russian Spetznaz, and they could conceivably be Army GRU Spetznaz, Alfa Group Counter-Terrorism, or even her former unit, Vympel Special Purpose Group. The end result was simple: they would not have any wiggle room. And considering that they were all in PT gear, and therefore were HIGHLY visible, that was just adding to the problems. But Larissa had long ago been trained that there was no such thing as impossible odds. Just hurdles to overcome. Larissa consulted the map, and started heading in the general direction of the exfiltration zone, before veering away to get some terrain between them and OpFor, improve the odds against being detected or found. "Listen to me very carefully. The enemy force here are all quite obviously Special Forces. American, Polish, Dutch, probably even British or Russian in there too. The odds of us being captured are high. We are going to try and put some rough terrain between us and them, slow them down, but in the event we are captured, do exactly as I say. One: do not say a word to them. No name, no rank, no defiant banter, nothing. You speak, and that will make things worse. Two: study your surroundings, both for intel and for escape. Three: they may try to torture one of us to get the other to talk. I have been trained for this, so do not say a word regardless of what they do." Larissa said quietly as they moved. OFF Tag Tremblay William Tremblay - June 28, 2012 12:37 AM (GMT) ON SERE Grounds William nodded his agreement to what Larissa said then puled a pair of flash grands out of his pack and handed them to her. William said with a smile "here i manged to sneak a few of this in again and considering how useful flashbangs were last time i figure we should split them between us". taking notes of the environment he asked"have you ever gone hunting" as he followed her coming up with a few ways to give them more time. OFF Peter Kruger - June 28, 2012 01:29 AM (GMT) - On - SERE Grounds Peter had fallen silent as he knew he had struck a nerve with Coffin and thus allowed silence to come between them for the rest of the trip. Once there he let Coffin take the lead and get the map and compass and followed him into the forest. He stayed quiet while moving forward and following for about five minutes before he finally spoke up. "I didn't mean any offense to you back there by the way." He smirked as walked, looking down at his left leg. "I got hit pretty bad in Afghanistan back in '14 and I still suffer from pain in the mornings, you just caught me on a bad day." He quickly dropped as he heard a cracking of sticks nearby and caught sight of another group of trainees moving forward. "We should shift our path away from them. They aren't watching the ground and thus are going to get pegged easily." - OFF - Tag, Coffin, Open. - On - SERE Grounds, Twenty Minutes after the Trainees had left. Petty Officer First Class William Gregg, US Navy and Naval Seal had been slowly rocking on the balls of his feet for the last twenty minutes as he waited for the "Go" signal to begin hunting the trainees. He thrilled for the hunt and this was one of the few places he could do it without having to worry about the "rules'. He glanced at the GPS that gave the location of where the pair of trainees he had been assigned to hunt were located. He head picked the pair after they had linked up wanting to see how they would react with each other and in the field. He glanced at his watch as a quiet beep was heard. It was time. William quickly moved off into the forest and then slowly began to follow his targets, giving them a chance to become complacent and think they were making head away. It was then he would strike.. - OFF - Tag, Koralov & Tremblay Larissa Koralov - June 28, 2012 01:51 AM (GMT) ON SERE Grounds "...first of all, they were only good last time because NVGs are far more sensitive to the flash. Otherwise, they suck outside. The whole concept is to disorient personnel in a room, not outdoors." Larissa explained, declining the grenades, "Second of all, they're going to really give it to you for stealing munitions." She continued to move, checking the map again, and adjusting their path to avoid the nearby creek, and leading as deep into the forest as possible. OFF Tag Tremblay, Open Brian Coffin - June 28, 2012 02:03 AM (GMT) ON SERE Grounds "No, I'm a bit defensive, that's all. Don't worry about it." Brian replied, already veering away, "Besides, we're already obvious targets with our PT gear...gotta tip the scales on us every which way but loose, right? Anyways, you're right. Some of these kids are so wet behind their ears, the OpFor's gonna find 'em by the trail they leave. Looks like there's a good forest about half a klick. Try to put some trees between us and them." He started leading the way from the trainees and into the woods, stepping lightly as they walked, taking great pains to avoid giving their position away, but being in dark blue and reflective silver was going to make that a bit tricky. OFF Tag Kruger William Tremblay - June 28, 2012 02:46 AM (GMT) ON SERE Grounds william didn't say anything and just followed OFF TAG OPEN Peter Kruger - June 28, 2012 03:14 AM (GMT) - On - SERE Grounds "Looks like there's a good forest about half a klick. Try to put some trees between us and them." "It's a good idea. Also we can use the branches from the trees to brush away our tracks. Will slow us down a bit but I think it will help us in the long run. Also lets try and find some mud or something and roll in it, makes us less flashy." Peter said as he followed Coffin towards the woods. "There a place like a river or something?" He glanced behind him as he watched the other pair move off and away from them and he nodded to himself. "Looks like we are clear." - Off - Tag, Coffin, Open. - On - SERE Grounds, on the Hunt William had moved swiftly through the forest, knowing exactly where his targets where obviously helped him in plotting his path to take down the trainees. He planned to move ahead of the pair and ambush them from that direction, a direction he knew they wouldn't be ready for. He glanced down at his GPS and saw he was about five minutes away from them and thus angled out to their left, making it so that he gave them a wide birth before moving in for the kill. He also made sure to stay from any other groups, as they were targets of others. He moved at a crouch, using the forest to keep his movements covered and making sure his camouflage helped him blend in. He glanced down at the GPS once more, they were now just to his right. ~Thirty Meters, Almost there.~ William kept moving, glancing to his right ever so often. He slowed his breathe as well as he speed, not wanting to tip them off. He slowly began moving closer, angling his approach to come from the unknown flank.. ~Twenty Meters, I am coming. ~ He kept moving ever slowly forward as he narrowed in on his targets and took the Intar off his belt and crouched down low as he activated it, hoping the sound didn't give him away. He could now finally see his targets. ~Good, now it is time.. I am here.~ He raised the Intar and jumped out of the foliage and into the open from the pair's north left flank and quickly fired a burst at Trainee Tremblay and then another one at Trainee Koralov, the energy of the weapon pulsating across their whole body as it made contact. "Checkmate, Fellas." - Off - Tag, Koralov & Tremblay Melinda Macintosh - June 28, 2012 10:06 PM (GMT) ON: Corporal Michael Brightlee was standing there, pretty much confused. Sure, he had done SERE before, but failed to evade capture, being caught only hours after the start. He was a wizard with technology, but not so much in combat. He had passed basic by the skin of his teeth and called himself a Marine. "Sir, corporal Michael Brightlee, USMC. Guess we're together." He said, turning to Havenborn. After getting to know Havenborn a bit during the ride, he coughed up. "I do think you've drawn the short straw here, sir. I only just passed basic by the skin of my teeth." He admitted. Tag Havenborn, I'm your partner :). William Tremblay - June 29, 2012 01:00 AM (GMT) (let's try this again with out that screw up) ON William fell to his knees as his body was hit by the red fire "damn it.." he muttered as he fell in to unconsciousness Alone in the Dark Alone in the Dark